


Anchored

by rosweldrmr



Category: The Martian, The Martian - All Media Types, The Martian - Andy Weir
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 07:17:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2842721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosweldrmr/pseuds/rosweldrmr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything is too much. Losing Mark, scrubbing the mission, ten more months floating through deep space, Chris. Beth is overwhelmed, she’s lost and floundering and the only thing that’s keeping her anchored is Chris Beck. | Johanssen deals with the aftermath of losing Mark Watney, and Beck is there to lend his shoulder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anchored

Beth is hiding. There’s really no other way to describe it. They left Mars orbit almost 24 hours ago, and with each passing hour, she can feel the grief settle like a weight on her chest. She can’t face the commander, or the rest of the crew. So she hides. No small feat on a ship as confined as Hermes, but she manages. Though she knows it won’t last long.

“Hey,” Chris calls, right on queue.

He’s hanging from the ladder that leads from the reactor to the bridge. The six bunks are nothing more than pods that jut out at alternating intervals along the shaft. The centripetal module is designed to house the bridge, labs, and rec. Which leaves the bunks and the reactor connected by the Semicone-A corridor. So the further away from the bridge you get, the less the artificial gravity there is. That means the bunks are almost entirely suspended in microgravity, like the reactor. It’s more practical that way, the crew requires less room if they can just velcro their sleeping bags to any wall they want, like the old ISS.

“Hey,” Beth says, looking up. Chris is still on the ladder, but leans against the opening of her bunk. “Come in,” she says and pulls herself against the back wall. They are cramped spaces at the best of times, but with two people it’s nearly overwhelming. Especially if that other person is Chris.

It's not that he's particularly large. He’s pretty average, maybe a little wider through the shoulders than Mark--

At the thought of Mark, Beth is overcome with a fresh wave of grief. Chris must see it because he pulls himself into the bunk and hugs her. And Beth let’s herself cry. She knows her tears will cling to the skin of her face in the microgravity, making her look like some kind of swamp monster, but she doesn’t care.

“Shhhhhh,” Chris soothes her, rubs her neck and cradles the back of her head. And she lets herself fold up into him. They float together, Beth wrapped up in his arms, sobbing.

She knows losing Mark has been rough on all of them. They all loved Mark. And it’s selfish of her to do this, to hide and mourn and expect Chris to come find her and comfort her. But then again, Chris has always been there for her. When her grandmother died two years ago, he was the one who’d pulled her aside after a dismally failed simulation and hugged her and let her sob into his shoulder. This seems to be their routine.

Beth knows she’s in love with him. She’s known that for a long time now. And it isn’t exactly the best situation, but right this second she’s glad he’s here. She’s glad that they're able to steal this small thing, this sad moment together, where she can just let herself cry and know that he’ll take care of her.

Eventually her tears stop, and she can feel a headache forming. “Sorry,” she says as she pulls away from him and turns to get a towel to absorb her tears so he won’t see her like that.

“No, it’s okay,” Chris says and when she turns back to look at him, there are a few errant puddles clinging to his cheeks.

“Here,” she says and floats over to him and presses the towel to his face. “I think a few of mine escaped.” She knows it's a lie, but she’s happy to let him save face if that’s what he needs.

“No, they’re mine,” he admits and Beth nearly cries again. She knew Chris and Mark were close. They were both around the same age and from similar backgrounds. Smart, funny, a little glib. She could have just as easily fallen for Mark. But she didn't. For her, there was only ever Chris. But he and Mark and bonded almost instantly. Unlike Vogel who had a family, and Martinez and Lewis who were military, Mark and Chris formed a natural camaraderie over the last six years.

“Oh God,” Beth groans and buries her face in her hands.

“What?” Chris asks.

“Six years,” she says, like it explains her reaction. But Chris just looks confused.

“We’ve trained for six years together. And now… now Mark’s just gone.” Chris’ face crumbles in pain, and Beth is angry at herself for dragging him into her sorrow.

“Beth, you can’t keep doing this,” he tells her and she really tries not to cry.

“I know. You don’t think I know that? I know Commander Lewis is going to rip me a new one, and you know what? I’ll deserve it. I know we still have ten months 'till we get home, and we all have work to do. But it’s only been a few days… and I can’t--” Beth chokes as another sob tears through her throat.

“Can’t what?” Chris asks.

“I can’t stop thinking about him. What if… what if I’d been closer to him?” she admits the terrible fear that’s been slowly eating away at her since Sol 6.

“So you could have been killed too?” Chris immediately points out.

“Marybe!” Beth shouts and pulls out of his reach. “Maybe it would have been better that way,” she admits, curling up on herself. She must look like a child, floating there, hugging her knees and trying not to cry. “At least then…” she trails off when she sees the look on Chris’ face.

She’s seen him mad, she’s seen him angry. And this is nothing like that. His face is flushed red with rage. “Then what?” he asks her, balling his hands into tight fists.

Beth knows she’s crossed a line, but it’s the truth. “At least then I wouldn’t have to see him die everytime I close my eyes!” she shouts at him. And she knows he’s upset because she’s being melodramatic, but it doesn’t make it any less true. Everytime she shuts her eyes, she can see him, hear him. “I heard his scream,” she says and is only halfway aware that she’s trembling. “Not over the radio, I could hear him scream through my suit. And I just stood there. I couldn’t even find his body.”

She can it now. The red swirling eddies of the Martian soil that jostled them as they ran for the MAV. It was a just struggle to stay on her feet. Mark was just a few steps behind her, but already the backs of his legs and helmet were obscured by the sand. Chris and the rest were a distant memory, lost to the darkness.

He was saying something about how to tie down the MAV so it wouldn't tip, something brilliant probably. He broke mid sentence to catch his breath and Beth turned to him. She didn’t want to risk losing him in the storm. And just as he start to speak again, something slammed into his back, carrying him away.

She reached for him, screaming his name, but it was already too late. She could hear the decompression alarm a second before he flatlined and his lifesigns indicator disappeared entirely.

Chris shakes her shoulders and her eyes snap open. It’s only then that Beth realizes she’s closed them, wallowing to the memory that’s slowly destroying her.

“And being dead would have been better?” Chris asks, tears undulating as a pool under his eyes as he looks right at her. 

“I don’t know,” she admits and feels like she’s let him down.

“You can’t keep doing this,” he tells her softly and Beth has never wished she could kiss him more than she does in that moment. When she’s nothing but a withered husk of an astronaut, stitched together by grief and self doubt. She feels nothing like the woman she was before. She feels hollow and useless, a waste of space. And yet, the way Chris looks at her, the way his thumb traces up her cheekbone and whispers that _she’s better than this_. She’s sure she’s never loved anyone more.

And it’s too much. Everything is too much. Losing Mark, scrubbing the mission, ten more months floating through deep space, Chris. Beth is overwhelmed, she’s lost and floundering and the only thing that’s keeping her anchored is Chris Beck.

She kisses him. It’s something not borne of passion or lust. It’s a simple expression of grief and loss. She craves comfort, she craves safety and something solid. Something real. And she’s wanted to do this for so long. NASA seems so far away, even the commander feels like a distant ghost when Beth is crammed into her bunk, floating two inches from Chris. So she takes the risk, because she needs it. She needs this and him.

The kiss is awkward and wet with tears. Beth draws her hands up to frame Chris’ face and breathes in the kiss like she’s starved for oxygen. The force of her momentum pushes them towards the entrance of the shaft and the ladder bumps into her hands as she glides her fingers through his close-cropped hair. With the ladder behind him, Beth pulls herself flush against his chest.

She doesn’t have time to worry that maybe he doesn’t feel the same way about her because he’s kissing her with just as much desperation as she is. His hands lace in her short hair and wrap around her waist, tethering them to each other.

After a few more seconds, where his lips slide down her throat and leaves a moist trail up to her ear, she hears herself moan softly and then he’s gone. Pulled away from her so quickly, she finds herself floating alone in her bunk as he disappears down the narrow shaft taking the ladder three rungs at a time as he practically slides down, with the help of some artificial gravity, towards the bridge.

Beth is left flushed and shamed. She knows she had no right to do that, to give credence to the _thing_ they’d danced around for years. Not now. Not when they still had a mission to do, and Lewis would likely eviscerate them if she ever found out. She lightly touches her lips and shuts her eyes.

Only this time, she doesn’t see Mark being flung headlong into the red sandstorm. This time she sees Chris’ face just before she’d kissed him. That strange, soft, wistful look that made her forget everything else but him. And it isn’t exactly coping, she knows that. This isn’t really the healthiest or the right way to push past the grief. But it’s all she has right now, so she takes it.

She can mourn Mark and fucking it up with Chris when they get back to earth and she can hide in her apartment for a month. But for right now, she has a full schedule of work to do, and as long as she holds onto that kiss, she thinks maybe it’ll be enough.

She hopes.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Space romance is the best. I may have taken some liberties with the Hermes layout. They probably have artificial gravity in the bunks (seeing as that would help prepare them for the Martian gravity) but I don't think it was explicitly stated so I made something up because kissing, floating space cuties makes me happy. Sorry Andy, I'm messing with your universe.


End file.
